Tier 4 Fund Management Discussion

That’s tier 3 by definition though. Tier 4 is developer funds that also happen to be a reserve. It’s just that most developers in the crypto world prefer to be paid in BTC.

Nu does not by definition hold tier 3 funds.
BTC could be exchanged close to payment with granted NSR.

edit: sorry for this extremely short reply. It was not meant unfriendly. I was typing on mobile phone. I think I’ll start a new thread that tries to supplement this discussion here by trying to draw a bigger picture in which the T4 fund management discussion hopefully fits.

So? Does it not solve the problem?

Exactly. If the price is not going t bounce back to $1, I’d rather keep the developers paid than extending the peg for another few hours/days, because the developers are the source of hope.

We may first need to agree on this first: when is the T4 fund, which is mainly for paying developers, to be used as liquidity support fund? T4 managers need to clearly understand this to do their job.
To me these two things are an odd couple.

Do we have a chance to speed the development of tier 4 fund management up?
I’m asking because of this:

Can we have a thread like this one but for Tier 6? I think we might be able to come to consensus for Tier 6 more quickly than Tier 4.

I don’t see the reason or need for that.

Tier 6 consists of NBT or NSR that are granted by NSR holders for a reason.
The addresses where the NBT and NSR are granted could very well be tier 4 multi signature fund management addresses.
Conceptual the 40 million NSR that will be burned soon would fit in tier 4 buy side - if the tier 4 buy side would hold NSR next to BTC.

At least this is my interpretation of the liquidity model.
I see no reason for having a(n additional) tier 6 management team - effectively the NSR holders are the tier 6 management team!

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Tier 4 holds BTC currently and is reserved for paying developers. Tier 6 holds NSR with the sole purpose of defending the peg and is about to be burned. All I’m saying is that we need a multisig team to hold a reserve of NSR with the sole purpose of defending the peg. If you don’t want to call it T6, fine, let’s call it the Magical Unicorn Signers, whatever, let’s just get a multisig group with control over an NSR address with the sole purpose of supporting the peg according to some simple rules (like those that JL just posted).

Reserved for that, but not limited to it.

I beg to differ. Tier 6 creates NBT or NSR if necessary - by grants - to defend the peg.
Using feedback loops from lower tiers reduces the risk for the peg.

I agree that an NSR reserve with the sole purpose of defending the peg is useful.
I recognize tier 4 as the ideal layer for that; multi sig included.
I like “Magical Unicorn Signers” and would like to call the tier 4 fund management team that.
What about the draft of rules I proposed?

Tier 6 doesn’t print nsr or nbt, shareholders do. The tiers are each a separated reserve. Tier 6 is an nsr reserve held for the sole purpose of supporting the peg in times of need.

Sorry, if you summarized the rules into a simple list somewhere I must have missed it.

It is my understanding as well that tier 6 is dealing with NBT or NSR printed by shareholders.
But I don’t expect NBT or NSR to be kept by custodians on tier 6 - for what reason?
They are granted on demand.

I wouldn’t call it summarized rules, but it’s here:

Trying to summarize it:
Tiers 1 to 3 are outside of direct control by Nu.
Tiers 4 to 6 are in full direct control by Nu.

Tiers could be interpreted in a waterfall model (this is my interpretation, please add to it if you like; the triggered actions are just a draft, a proposal).
Each tier interacts with the adjacent tiers; tier 5 is something different.
Nu provides an incentive for putting funds on tier 1.
Tier 1 drains funds from tier 2, which drains funds from tier 3, etc.

Tier 4 holds funds for paying development operational costs and keeping the peg (BTC and NSR to reduce the dependency on BTC; ratio between BTC and NSR needs to be defined - why not 50/50?).
If the ratio of buy side sell side (or vice versa) is below 1.5 nothing happens.

Connection of tier 4 to lower tiers:
Between a ratio of 1.5 and 2 seeded auctions try to balance the sides (most effective likely on tier tier 3, less effective on tier 2, least effective on tier 1). Funds are taken from tier 4 (buy or sell side/ NSR or NBT). The seeded side is the smaller one.

Above a ratio of 2 funds from tier 4 are being injected to tier 1 to support the peg (BTC or NBT; depending on the side that needs support).

Connection of tier 4 to higher tiers:
If tier 4 (buy side) is below 12% of the value of NBT in the wild, shareholders are expected to fill it. A corridor of 3 percent points tries to limit the involvement of NSR holders.
Once tier 4 buy side is below 9% NBT value in the wild tier 4 buy side (multi signature fund management address) gets filled with an NSR grant (tier 6 triggered).
Once tier 4 buy side is above 15% of NBT value in the wild, NBT get burned by the fund managers.
The same rules could apply to tier 4 sell side (then tier 4 buy/sell side should try to get balanced before NBT get burned or NSR granted), but as funds on tier 4 sell side pose no default or volatility risk they can be vastly different.

On tier 5 shareholders are expected to raise parking interest above 0% if the average sum of tier 1 to tier 3 in the last time frame x of sell side liquidity is bigger than buy side.
To go into greater detail about parking rates is out of the scope of this attempt to summarize the rules - I don’t even have a detailed proposal in the verbose version.

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Do you have a rigorous definition for this? Remember that liquidity data from tiers 1-3 can be manipulated fairly easily (just get shareholders to pass a 1 NBT grant).

My instinct is to call this false. The only thing that shareholders are directly in control over is the creation of NBT and NSR, which leads me to a different model than the waterfall model:

Nu can create NBT or NSR at will to incentivize reserves with different intents and rules.

  1. T1 is the front line reserves. Highly decentralized
  2. T2 is transient backup reserves for the front lines. Decentralized.
  3. T3 is cold reserves for the front lines. Mildly decentralized.
  4. T4 is cold reserves for developers. Can be mobilized for the front lines. Multisig.
  5. T5 is negative nbt reserves that can be considered out of circulation. Highly decentralized.
  6. T6 is operational cold reserves. Can be mobilized for the front lines. Multisig.

Motions and grants affect these tiers directly and can cause funds to flow between them.

The operational cold reserves are for converting NSR to buy liquidity (or directly dealing with NBT:NSR via seeded auctions eventually) in a short period of time. Effectively, our % reserve is:
[T1+T2+T3+T4+T6]buy / (NBT marketcap - [T1+T2+T3+T4+T6]sell - T5)

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With “NBT in the wild” I mean the amount of NBT sold from Nu to people:

nud -unit=B getinfo | grep supply
    "moneysupply" : 4625463.0383,

The 4,000,000 NBT of the FSRT needs to be subtracted from that number, because obviously the FSRT is still in possession of Nu. The 40,000 NBT management fee for the FSRT are a part of NBT in the wild. They will not need to get sold to enter the market, or the tier 1-3 sell side, respectively.

As a result I consider 625463.0383 NBT in the wild.
This number can’t be manipulated except for burns and grants.

Maybe I should have written funds on tier 4 to 6 are “(temporarily) owned/held” by Nu.
I’m not saying that Nu possesses all the funds (e.g. tier 5). But on tier 4 and 6 Nu possesses the funds is free to do as NSR holders decide.
Funds on tier 1 to 3 are “managed” by people who possess NBT and BTC.

I don’t see why T2 is less decentralized than T3, because all funds on tier 1 to 3 are in the hands of the same people - more or less.
The NBT in these tiers have been sold from Nu.
The BTC in these tiers is provided by LPs, because they are incentivized (by Nu) to do so.

T4 is reserves for developers, but for ongoing costs and supporting the peg as well.

T6 is NBT or NSR granted by NSR holders.
Why have another fund management team dealing with multisig addresses, if the NBT or NSR can be granted to tier 4 multisig addresses as well? That makes things more complicated, but what’s the benefit?

Your model does not seem in contradiction to @masterOfDisaster’s significantly to mee.

The difference is in how funds flow. Waterfall assumes funds flow down. My model assumes funds can enter and exit any tier, the biggest difference between tiers being intent.

Tier 2 is more decentralized than tier 3 because we still have targets for our bots, meaning some users of the ALPs have funds on exchange that are not up on the pools. It is also a general trend that we should continue to support that T2 is more decentralized than T3.

Funds in a multisig are not funds Nu controls, they are funds the multisig owners control. What makes the multisig users more reliable than, say, NuLagoon?

T4 is reserved for developer fund. T6 is an operational reserve used to adjust nsr and nbt supply directly. T6 should have a threshold at which it starts converting nsr to nbt or nbt to nsr, and should be doing this on a semi-regular basis. T4 should have a more stringent threshold at which it starts using funds, which should be a rare occurance.

In my interpretation of the liquidity model funds can flow in both directions - the direction the water flows might change.
Are we really discussing names?
I will change the expression “waterfall model” to “a reference to the OSI model” in that case.

My intention for that verbose post which dealt with this interpretation was to develop a liquidity model in which the tiers interact with adjacent tiers based on thresholds that trigger actions - something I did miss.

Did you read Interpretation of the liquidity tiers, a waterfall model, triggers, metrics and actions?

The custodians of the funds that are held by the multi signature address are chosen by NSR holders; they receive funds that are in the possession of Nu.
The funds at NuLagoon aren’t in the possession of Nu. NuLagoon receives funds for the compensation - not the funds! - from Nu.
NuLagoon can mess with the granted compensation, but if NuLagoon messes with the funds it’S not harming Nu.
That’s why the tier managers need to be chosen chosen more wisely than NuLagoon or other LPs.
I hope the process of forming and electing the tier 4 management team serves the purpose of making it reliable.

In the start of Nu single custodians were trusted with hundreds of thousands of NBT value.
We are talking about tens of thousands of NBT value in the hands of multi signature custodians.
This is not perfect, but a big improvement.

The only way to get rid of custodians is to eliminate tier 4 and do all with NBT and NSR grants which end up at custodian addresses to fund development or operational costs or in seeded auctions to support the peg - not very agile in times of peg at risk.

Tier 4 is not restricted to development:

…nor should it be. Tier 4 can be the hub of liquidity management. An explanation in greater detail can be found in Interpretation of the liquidity tiers, a waterfall model, triggers, metrics and actions?

Why create another fund management if NSR holders can grant NSR and NBT on demand?

This threshold is part of my interpretation of the liquidity model.

Would you agree that tier 4 and tier 6 funds could be managed by the same fund management team - even with the same multi signature addresses?
…that’s what I meant with

Tier 4 can play a central role in the liquidity management.

An idea how to move funds between tiers and example thresholds that trigger actions as well as the actions can be found in my text wall post with an interpretation of the liquidity model.

All it requires is to widen the view of the capabilities or roles of tier 4.

This isn’t about what you call it. I don’t think we should model tiers as interacting with adjacent tiers aside from T1-3 (which I am happy to say follow a waterfall model). T4-6 do not follow a waterfall, but are instead independent reserves.

My argument is that the distinction between T6 and T4 cold reserves is a useful one. It is important to know which funds are reserved for adjusting the nsr:nbt supply directly and which funds are reserved for developers. Of course both reserves will be mobilized to support the peg in a global peg break scenario.

I’m a fan of something like this:

T4 holds $80k in funds not on the network. We can use this to make smart contracts (or whatever) with developers. We can make small nbt&nsr reserves too if developers start accepting them as payment in a reliable fashion.

T6 holds 5% of the nbt and nsr marketcap. It balances the peg globally based on reports from T1-3 and actually looking at orders on exchanges. With a group of human signers and some lines in the sand, we should be able to do this alright.

That brings us to the closing point: when to use T4 on the peg. Basically, my statement is that we use the same rules as for T6 here, but with much more stringent parameters. This way, if shit really hits the fan T4 steps in and Nu refills later via nsr grant after the threat of blackswan has passed.

You can try to interact independently between tier 4-6 and the lower tiers, but it will he harder to develop a rule set, thresholds and actions if you do it that way.
Making triggered actions on tier 6 dependent on the state of tier 4 and the triggered actions on tier 4 dependent on the state of tiers 1-3, overshooting the mark and oscillating systems are less likely.
Tier 5 is and stays something different and was in my interpretation independently.

My proposal creates a connection 6-4-(3,2,1) independent from 5-(3,2,1) in terms of money flow.
I just found it easier to treat tier 5 independently, especially as I see tier 5 activity less suited for emergencies, but well-suited for long-term adjustments.

I agree that accounting wise it is very useful. I thought about it management wise with the foresight to develop a rule set that works with one fund management team for tier 4 and 6 buy and and sell side as well as with 4 independent management teams.
If you look at how hard it is to form a tier 4 management team, can you really imagine having an independent tier 6 fund management team soon, let alone 4 teams - one for each tier and side?
The control over tier 6 could be done by tier 4 management team. Creating and passing grants either way is in the hands of NSR holders.
Practically it would mean, tier 4 fund managers conduct the seeded auctions once they are available or sell the tier 6 NSR if need be.

I like that proposal.
If I understand that right, your choice is to support the buy side peg with NSR (tier 6) funds before BTC are taken.

Allow me to repeat my proposal:

I think we are imagining almost the same, but explain it differently.
I’d have found “tier 4 fund managers managed tier 6 funds” confusing and explained them as “tier 4 funds in NSR”.
When I wrote my interpretation I didn’t expect to have a separate (from tier 4 management) tier 6 fund management team any time soon. It would make things more decentralized, but more complicated as well. I hope that Nu grows and once has different fund management teams; short-term I’d be glad to have one. Even a small team would be more distributed than a single person. This is not the end of evolution, it’s the next step.
I tried to find a way to manage the tier 6 funds that are created by shareholders in advance as buffer without requiring a separate team.

So what about this:
Tier 6 funds on buy side (NSR) are on different addresses than tier 4 funds on buy side (BTC).
Tier 6 funds on sell side (NBT) are on different addresses than tier 4 funds on sell side (NBT).

The latter one isn’t necessary (both funds are in the same unit), but it is useful to have NBT funds on independent addresses, because that allows different multi signature parameters.
“Tier 6” funds are by design (potentially) required more often than tier 4 funds. They could or should have lower requirements in terms of moving funds (faster action).
In fact the tier 6 funds could be held in several buy/sell side addresses: some with low requirements to move funds, which might need only 2 or 3 private keys and some with more funds that require more private keys.
As more and more people are involved in Nu management, we can create a lot of management teams - as much as useful and possible.
For the start… tier 4 fund management team! :wink:

Seeing the potential (or need) of tier 4 fund management team to manage tier 6 funds as well is what made me post this:

…and it made me continuing my posts here, although it would fit here as well.

If that’s the way to go, a redesign of FRST is a step that could be taken at the same time.

So here’s how I imagine this happening, in chronological order:

  1. JL continues to operate T4 BTC reserve, keeping it under $80k.

  2. We set up a multisig NSR address (T6). This group is given 5% of the NSR supply (42mil NSR) with the instructions to sell a portion of them for NBT if buy side liquidity in T1-3 goes below $80k while sell side is above $100k (or if buy is <40% of total and total is <$100k)

  3. We set up a multisig NBT address (T6). This group is given 5% of the NBT supply with instructions to sell a portion of them for NBT if sell side liquidity in T1-3 goes below $80k while buy side is above $100k (or if sell is <40% of total and total is <$100k)

  4. If either group has >6% of their respective marketcap, they burn back down to 5%.

  5. Setup up a multisig BTC address for T4. Give this group instructions to buy and burn NBT if buy side liquidity goes below $20k and sell side is above $40k (or if buy is <25% of total and total is <$50k)

  6. T4 can at any time mobilize to buy and burn NBT that is being sold for <$0.9

  7. Develop smart contracts using the T4 multisig such that we can immediately pay developers to fix dire problems if they arise. Also, any other clever contracts with developers we can think up.

  8. Make T4 NSR or NBT reserves if there’s any kind of desire amongst developers to be paid this way.

By step 4 we have a functioning T6. By step 6 we have a functioning T4. Multisig signers can of course use their best judgement on any of the above rules, making bugs in the client or liquidity reporting not as big of an issue (human oversight).

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That looks great and very compact!

That’s almost funny, because this discussion was intended to find a solution for tier 4 fund management.
It appears that at least two people find it more important to deal with tier 6 funds, to connect NBT with NSR.

I’m not sure about the limits given in 2.) and 3.).
I think the corridor is too small and a kind of average over some time would be required.
And I’m not sure whether absolute values should be preferred over ratios.

I hope that this

can help the purpose of 2.) and 3.) with data.

What about extending it by
"If either group has <4% of their respective marketcap, shareholders grant up to 5%."

Fixed values for buy and sell side? I like the ratio, though, because it’s the same as I had in mind when I thought about using tier 4 funds to support the peg :wink:

Very clever as it’s a good investment for Nu!

I see these two steps in the far future, but it’s good to have some foresight.

I hope that others find the change of priories useful and would like to follow that lead.
In the end we might get from 1 to 6 in the same run.

A strong incentive for NSR holders to move tier 4 management from @JordanLee (and reach 6. soon) is this motion: [Passed] Liquidity operations compensation

If there’s no support for doing 1 to 6 in one run, 5 and 6 should be preponed.

This is right, I forgot to add that.

I edited to add ratios below a certain total liquidity. I’m so down to talk more about these limits, this is what I wanted to get to: the meat of the multisig.

As far as time windows are concerned, I think that should be mitigated by use of multisig and human awareness. I also left out mention of velocity, i.e. how many funds are withdrawn from the multisig address how quickly to deal with the problem. For example, if the buy side is low for an hour, perhaps $100/hour are used whereas if it’s been a day of broken pegs we ramp up to $1,000 an hour.